Creating Parity With Terrorism

A Dilemma of Consciousness

Playing Mr. Nice Guy

Any home-grown terrorist forfeits his legal rights by signing up with a declared enemy of the US. Once he establishes sides with a well-known enemy of the country, he/she become a war-time combatant, and, as a result, can be captured or killed on the spot. This potential outcome is a voluntary choice of the the American-born terrorist. His death is something he ascribed to once signing on to being an enemy of the US. The home-grown terrorist freely decides where to place his/her affiliation. Either through ignorance or a sense of exalted ego, any particular home-grown terrorist probably does not take into account the full capabilities of the US. An individual is free to choose what team to support. Making the wrong choice may turn out to be costly because Americans will never tolerate a terrorist -- regardless of the geographical boundary into which the individual is born.

Making declarations about individual rights afforded by the Constitution only reveals the naivete of soft politicians. Perhaps such politicians have forgotten but we remain in a state of war. During a state of war, it is not unusual to summarily execute a recognized traitor. The mere idea of giving a home-grown terrorist a civil trial is something like lunacy. If we were to listen to soft-to-moderate politicians, every terrorist member (or at least those with a US birth certificate) would be entitled to due process. What the political figure overlooks is that we have a real, ongoing war against terrorists -- regardless of their birth place.

The rules of war are entirely different from affording a US citizen the equanimity of judicial process. If we are ever going to win a war against terrorism, we cannot afford to play the dubious role of the penultimate arbiter. War is not just, it is not kind or fair, it is a horror that sometimes must be adopted to preserve one's society and culture. We cannot afford to be benevolent where our enemy is devoid of any form of conscience. The only way to win such an abstract war is by being even more ruthless than our enemy. If our country lacks the guts to display equivalent or surpassing forms of cruelty, we might as well throw in our cards because the enemy will only gauge our determination by the extent of our effort to win -- regardless of how horrible those circumstances may be.

America dropped two atom bombs on Japan to bring about a swifter conclusion to the war. We had to accept the deaths of thousands of civilians to present this display of power. It is acknowledged that an attack on the mainland of Japan would easily have sent thousands of marines to their death. The objective of war is to win at any cost. The less costly approach for the US was to drop a couple of atomic bombs. We knew the collateral damage would be horrific, but we had the fortitude to do what was necessary. Using the bombs caused a Japanese surrender, which otherwise would have taken months/years to achieve.

In the war against terrorism, the US must use every advantage it possesses. Our offensive against the enemy MUST be as horrific and unflinching as possible. Our terrorist enemies only understand and can be persuaded by great, individual suffering with little or no hope for mercy. It's an ugly business but we have no choice but to display a brutality that makes their own methods pale by comparison.

An enemy may only be demoralized through unflinching superiority -- militarily and an unequivocal morality that displays no mercy. Our enemy is fond of decapitation. In such a conflict the US cannot chain itself to a higher moral standard. In a time of war nothing is sacred. We cannot disguise our brutality behind civil trials or their like. If we are required to place heads on spikes to advance our goal then that is what we must do. The concept of being a merciful adversary provides us with no advantage. Pretending to adhere to some moral high ground is a sham. Where our enemy can and will lop off heads without a second thought, we must display an even more grotesque form of punishment. We are dealing with an enemy that has a 12th Century mentality. This time gap is something we must overcome psychologically. Playing good cop/bad cop is not the remedy. We can only achieve superiority by instilling a sense of greater terror in our opponents. There are methods of achieving this objective -- though we need not discuss them in this forum. Achieving a psychological advantage over an opponent is very powerful. So, when I read news articles that involve pussy-footing around the enemy, I am forced to scrutinize the criticiser's knowledge about warfare and the inherent barbarism that sometimes must be adopted to gain that psychological edge.

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sending

American Romance 6 years agofrom America

It could not have been written any better! Now to the question of what do we do with those who are simply associated and supporting terrosist while pretending to be everyday normal Muslims in this country? That would be Ok with me except they do little to denounce their extreme brethren? We see daily what Muslims are doing in Europe and other countries they get a foothold in so I believe we may have to alter our constitution and outlaw religions that have extreme hate associated with them!

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